Contraception and the New Crusades

Of all the overlapping explanations proffered for the recent spate of legislation designed to limit access to contraception and abortion in the United States, few have any kind of international focus. This makes sense, as few of the proponents of such measures refer to global concerns. Yet it seems likely that deep-seated fears of demographic change are lurking somewhere behind such efforts, and, more importantly, help to make compromise so difficult.

So what does this have to do with the world outside? Despite the very low rates of abortion (and sexually-transmitted diseases) in the Netherlands, that country’s policies of sex education, along with subsidizing and promoting contraception, do not endear themselves to American conservatives. The exact opposite is true. While the Times, in a 2006 article titled “Contra-Contraception” highlighted the ethical reasons for such seeming cognitive dissonance, it also seems likely that there is a subconscious (and sometimes very conscious!) strategic explanation. In other words, if the Netherlands, and many other countries in Europe and around the world, manage to prevent abortions by preventing pregnancy, that is not considered an acceptable strategy, partially because the resulting low fertility rates allegedly leave such countries open to conquest by Muslim immigrants.

Christopher Hitchens sometimes noted that conservative religious groups have been known to put aside their differences in opposition to secular modernity, but that is not currently on the agenda for American Evangelicals vis-à-vis Islam. The situation is somewhat different in Europe, where secular and/or leftist groups, feminists, gay-rights activists, and others have also sometimes endorsed restrictions on Islamic dress and mosque construction; though they also tend to fiercely oppose groups like the English Defense League. In any event, American conservatives seem to want “more babies” (in the memorable tirade of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse’s Leslee Unruh) more than they want fewer abortions, partially due to fear that the wrong people are reproducing too often. This is one reason, though not the largest, why Cristina Page and Amanda Peterman had such a brief opportunity to agree.

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We sniff out issues hiding in the foreign-policy forest and haul them back to the laboratory for inspection. We examine the anterior, posterior, and underside of an issue, as well as its shadows.

This blog provides a commentator with an opportunity to express his or her convictions more forcefully than may be appropriate for an article. If you have unique insight into a foreign-policy (or affairs) issue, please feel free to write a post and send it to editor Russ Wellen at deproliferator@gmail.com